Center for Future Civic Media

What is Civic Media?

Civic media is any form of communication that strengthens the social bonds within a community or creates a strong sense of civic engagement among its residents. Civic media goes beyond news gathering and reporting.

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Featured Project from the Center
Featured Community Project

Featured Project from the Center

Lost in Boston

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Lost in Boston is a general-purpose web tool that cities can use to get citizens involved in civic improvement projects.

How might communities use it?
Citizens can submit their ideas for the most poorly marked intersections in Boston. Their submissions can contain photographs, video, and other supporting media. Citizens vote on what intersections are in most need of attention. They contribute suggestions for improving the signage at intersections in the form of drawings, etc. and can vote on those suggestions as well. Sponsors sign on to pay for improving the intersections voted most in need, in exchange for placement on signs and/or on the web, and using sponsor funds, the city, perhaps in partnership with other groups, fabricates the new signs and puts them in place.

At what stage of development is it?
Recently proposed, we are currently in meetings with the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and local government officials. The first sign was recently installed on the grounds of MassArt, at 821 Huntington Ave.

Links:

http://lostinboston.org

Project team:

Rick Borovoy

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Featured Community Project

Campaign for the .nyc TLD

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As the Internet becomes central to civic, commercial, community, and cultural life, those with the best tools and understanding of its capabilities will prosper. Using research, education, training, and outreach, Connecting.nyc Inc.'s mission is to prepare the city for our networked future. To do so, we will use the .nyc TLD (like .com or .org but just for New York City) to plan, to organize, and to empower New York City's residents, institutions, and businesses to better connect with one another and the world.

The opportunity to acquire the .nyc TLD will arise in 2009.

http://www.openplans.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/project-home